I was picking that the National caucus wouldn’t have the courage to make a leadership change so close to an election. I felt it was too little and way too late and I still feel that way. Not because leaving it so late means they have little time to make an impression before the election but, because for too long, National have ignored what the electorate has clearly been telling them about their leadership and their direction.
Too little? Well, much as I find Todd Muller to be a significant improvement, I was looking for something that was going to give me confidence in the future: a National party committed to less government and more freedom to get on with the job. Less bureaucratic nonsense and more focus on the things that matter. Maybe a suggestion that we’ve gone too far in trying to regulate everything and protect everybody from themselves and maybe it’s time to encourage a little more personal responsibility.
Maybe a suggestion that both at a national level and local body level, it’s time to take stock of what we’re doing and how we’re spending other people’s money. Making politicians more accountable for their decisions.
I watched Mr Muller on Newshub Nation over the weekend hoping for something I could really get behind. OK it’s his first weekend as the leader and I’m happy to cut him some slack, but I haven’t seen anything yet that’s going to raise the roof for me. More of the same really, just presented by a different bloke in a slightly different way.
In the press conference on Friday, he delivered a carefully constructed statement. It may have contained some very powerful ideas and ideals, but I couldn’t get past:
“I’m about ideas that get results. I’m proud of working across Parliament on the Zero Carbon Act.”
The Zero Carbon Act: Climate change zealotry which, along with the Paris Climate Accord, we should have nothing to do with. Things that no matter what we (NZ) do, will have no impact on the planet. Not to mention the United Nations Global Migration Pact.
I would have been much more impressed with a stance that says that right now, we have to assess very carefully where we spend what little money we have and we need to take care of our urgent needs here at home first.
We need to be sensible as we move forward and not get involved in virtue-signalling nonsense until the evidence is indeed settled. I crave a National Party that will be true to its founding principles.
It’s early days yet but on a positive note: if nothing else, a change of government is probably more a possibility today than it was last week and that has to be a good thing.